Peake's Danse Macabre

What is it about?

Mervyn Peake has been referred to “as the most accomplished fantastic realist of modern English literature” by Duncan Fallowell (1981). What brings a sense of realism and the touch of fantasy into a unique combination may be ascribed to the presence of the grotesque in Peake’s fiction. ‘Danse Macabre’, with its fantastic incidents and realistic narrative tone is a good example for such a claim. The present study focuses on the grotesque and its relevant motifs within this story.

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